Tag Archives: Ohio

News

Ohio Republicans pass bill to cut bloated union salaries and benefits

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From the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

Ohio state senators narrowly approved a bill that would prohibit public-employee unions representing 400,000 state employees from bargaining over health benefits, pensions and working conditions.

While national attention has focused for weeks on a similar battle in Wisconsin, the vote, by 17-16 in Ohio’s Republican-controlled Senate, virtually ensured that the Buckeye State will become the first to strip collective bargaining rights from public employees as a means of grappling with gaping budget deficits.

The bill now goes to the House, where the Republicans have a 59-40 majority. If approved, as expected, it will move for signature to Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who supports the bill.

[…]Republican lawmakers say worker pay and benefit cuts are needed to offset projected budget shortfalls. “If we’re going to grow in Ohio, we cannot raise taxes,” Republican state Sen. Keith Faber said Wednesday.

[…]Union officials began a coordinated effort to try to block bills in Wisconsin and Ohio that would curtail collective bargaining rights for public workers, and right-to-work legislation introduced in 13 states, including New Hampshire and Missouri. Those bills would allow workers in the private-sector to opt out of paying dues or belonging to a union. Such legislation threatens the unions’ funding and their political clout heading into the 2012 elections.

In Wisconsin, Republican state senators passed a resolution fining the 14 Democrats who left the state Feb. 17 to prevent a vote on Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s bill restricting public employees’ collective-bargaining rights. The vote on the resolution didn’t require a quorum, unlike the budget bill that would curb bargaining.

The Wisconsin Democrats, who are in Illinois, will be fined $100 a day for their absence when the Senate is in session. Several of the Democrats went to Kenosha, Wis., Monday to meet with Republican Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, said Fitzgerald spokesman Andrew Welhouse. But the fines seemed to set back efforts to break the impasse.

Remember that Indiana Republicans are proposing a right-to-work bill, which would allow workers to OPT OUT of paying union dues, which are just used to campaign for Democrats and leftists causes anyway. This bill would break the backs of the unions.

Buckeyes and Badgers and Hoosiers, oh my!

News

Ohio Republican proposes ban on abortions after baby has a heartbeat

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Unborn baby scheming about moving to Ohio
Unborn baby scheming about moving to Ohio

From Fox News.

Excerpt:

An unborn child’s heartbeat can be detected as soon as 18 days after conception, and supporters of a bill slated to be unveiled in the Ohio Legislature Wednesday say that women should be prohibited from ending pregnancies beyond that milestone.

State Rep. Lynn Wachtmann is planning to unveil the “Heartbeat Bill” and a legislative aide for the Republican tells Fox News that 42 of the 99 representatives in the Ohio state House have signed on to the bill, which would make an exception to the heartbeat rule only in emergency medical situations.

According to 2009 data from the Ohio Department of Health, 56.6 percent of abortions in that state occur in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. And since the fetal heartbeat appears on monitors by six weeks into gestation in most cases, supporters of the bill believe that it could prevent thousands of abortions.

“When the Heartbeat Bill passes, it will be the most protective law in the nation,” Janet Folger Porter, president of conservative advocacy group Faith2Action, said in a release. Porter helped craft the bill, and was also instrumental in passing the nation’s first ban in partial-birth abortion when she was legislative director of Ohio Right to Life.

[…]And though Porter and former Ohio Right to Life president Linda Theis vocally support the Heartbeat Bill, the pro-life organization’s current executive director says the legislation is destined for failure.

“Unfortunately, the Heartbeat Bill will not survive a court challenge, and therefore not save one life,” Ohio Right to Life executive director Michael Gonidakis told Fox News, arguing that state courts and the Supreme Court would slap down the heartbeat cut-off in the same way they would reject a full abortion ban. “Because the Supreme Court, unfortunately, has ruled on countless occasions that any restrictions on abortion pre-viability are unconstitutional,” he says.

And in Georgia, another Republican is proposing a bill to ban all abortions once the unborn baby can feel pain. Can you imagine causing pain to a helpless little baby? That would be horrible – but that is exactly what abortion does. So, I hope both of these pro-life bills pass.

I also must note that poets will play no part in these initiatives to restrict abortion. These pro-life legislative efforts will be fought by lawyers and judges who have advanced legal training – training that takes effort and money to achieve. And their case will be grounded in science, not in poetry. The pro-abortion side is grounded in poetry, feelings and sad stories about poor, poor women who are not responsible for their own choices. The pro-life side is grounded in reason and evidence. And the more reason and evidence the pro-life side can muster, the stronger their case will be in the only place where it really matters – the legislatures and the courts.

Commentary

Is Dennis Kucinich or Pete Corrigan a better candidate?

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This Cleveland Plain Dealer article explains the differences between Ohio candidates Dennis Kucinich and Peter Corrigan.

Excerpt:

Could the voters produce a Republican sweep thorough enough to whisk away Dennis Kucinich?

It’s hard to imagine. It’s harder yet to get one’s hopes up. But a very credible Republican candidate is running against Cleveland’s unrepresentative representative this year, and residents of the 10th Congressional District should be falling all over themselves to elect him.

His name is Peter J. Corrigan. He’s a businessman with expertise in the financial side of companies and — of all things — physics. In other words, he’s not stupid.

[…]A mere 17 years after Clevelanders banished him from office for sinking their city into default, Kucinich headed off to Congress. And there he has lingered — at least when not running for president — ever since.

[…]When he was first elected, the not entirely tongue-in-cheek assessment was that with 434 adults to supervise him in the House of Representatives, how much damage could Dennis do?

[…]Since arriving at the House 13 years ago, Kucinich has sponsored 104 bills — some of them containing some pretty wacky stuff.

Fortunately, only four have become law. Their effects:

  • The Ukrainian Museum and Archives has a copy of “Window on America,” a TV program the U.S. Information Agency beamed at Ukraine in 1998.
  • Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski is now an honorary citizen of the United States.
  • A Cleveland post office has a new name.
  • Another Cleveland post office has a new name.

His bills to yank U.S. troops out of active war zones right this very minute, and impeach this, that and the other member of the George W. Bush administration didn’t make the cut. Embarrassed fellow Democrats hunched their shoulders, averted their eyes and voted down those crazy ideas.

[…]When he popped in to shake a few hands at a suburban Catholic church’s clambake a couple of weeks ago, one wag in attendance said he was tempted to grab a microphone and introduce “Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who used to be pro-life.”

[…]And then there’s that lonely battle Kucinich fought for single-payer health care, right up until President Barack Obama gave him a ride on Air Force One.

People who didn’t want to see the nation’s health care system wrecked by the federal government were praying that Kucinich would stick to his guns — relax, Congressman, it’s just a metaphor — and provide a crucial “no” vote on Obamacare.

People who bought years and years of his rhetoric about profiteering insurance companies just knew he’d show Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi how a person of real integrity behaves.

Instead, he caved. He voted for a bill he had vilified as an eternal guarantor of insurance company profits.

Read the whole thing and if you are in Ohio, vote for Pete Corrigan. Kucinich is the least sane person in Washington.